United Nations CERD/C/SWE/22-23 International Convention on Distr.: General 1 February 2017 the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination Original: English English, French and Spanish only Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under article 9 of the Convention Twenty-second and twenty-third periodic reports of States parties due in 2016 Sweden* [Date received: 11 January 2017] * The present document is being issued without formal editing. GE.17-01484(E) CERD/C/SWE/22-23 Introduction 1. Human rights are universal and universally applicable. All people being born free, and being of equal value with equal rights is a self-evident principle, and work for human rights is a high priority for the Swedish Government. The Government’s goal for its human rights policy is to ensure full respect for Sweden’s international human rights obligations. Work is constantly under way to this end, and Sweden has taken a number of measures in the most recent period. However, challenges remain before Sweden is entirely able to meet its obligations under conventions on human rights. 2. Sweden’s human rights policy rests on the assumption that the Swedish legal system is to comply with the conventions that Sweden has ratified and that Sweden’s obligations under the conventions are to be taken into account, in line with the principle of treaty- compliant interpretation, when applying Swedish law within all public activity, both that carried out at national level by the State and at local government level by the municipalities and county councils. 3. Sweden hereby submits, combined in a single document, its twenty-second and twenty-third periodic report under Article 9 of the United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. 4. The report has the same structure as the Articles in the Convention, and is based on the reporting guidelines for CERD-specific documents. The measures taken in the most recent reporting cycle are set out under each Article. As recommended by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the present report is also an update of Sweden’s earlier reports. The points raised in the Committee’s concluding observations to Sweden’s nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first report and the follow-up report are addressed throughout the document under the relevant Article. Article 2.1 5. As noted in earlier Swedish reports to the Committee, the Swedish Constitution provides fundamental legal protection against ethnic discrimination. For more exhaustive information on relevant legislation, the Committee is referred to paragraphs 19-30 in Sweden’s twelfth report, and paragraphs 18-19 in Sweden’s nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first report. 6. Penal law and its application, with special reference to paragraphs 11 and 12 of the Committee’s recommendations for information on relevant penal law, see paragraphs 20 and 21 in the nineteenth to twenty-first report and the last indent on page 1 of Sweden’s follow-up response to the Committee’s recommendations. 7. In March 2014, the Government charged the then National Police Board with developing initiatives to combat hate crime. This mandate includes working in consultation with the Swedish Prosecution Authority and the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention towards consistent practical application of the term “hate crime” within and between agencies, strengthening awareness of hate crime within the police service, and working to increase confidence in the police amongst people in groups that are particularly vulnerable to hate crime. 8. The National Police Commissioner has decided on what is known as a strategic initiative — “Fundamental rights and freedoms”. One objective of the initiative, in line with the Government mandate, is that the clear-up and prosecution rates are to increase and that employees are to become more aware of and have a greater understanding of the problems 2 CERD/C/SWE/22-23 surrounding hate crime. This is in order to make it easier to identify a hate crime motive in the event of a crime and subsequently have a broader perspective in all phases of the investigation. In line with the National Police Commissioner’s initiative, there is now a national contact point and special hate crime groups in the three metropolitan regions. In addition to investigation, the designated groups are also to work with victim support, training, collaboration and other measures to create reassurance and trust. There must be a capacity to resolve these tasks in other regions too. The Swedish Police Authority intends to develop its crime prevention work, partly through expanding contact and dialogue with vulnerable groups. At national level, a consultation forum was set up in autumn 2015 for representatives of groups vulnerable to hate crime. Collaboration with vulnerable groups also takes place at regional level, and locally with municipalities and local clubs and societies, through measures such as local collaborative agreements and pledges to citizens. Similarly, the ambition is to continually be able to monitor and compile national status reports on hate criminality in Sweden. In order to do this, a functional tool is needed to follow a hate crime case in the police service’s investigation support database, for example, by flagging it as a hate crime. 9. The Police Authority continually carries out internal and external training initiatives with the aim of raising the level of expertise in hate crime and crimes that threaten fundamental rights and freedoms. Initiatives often take place in collaboration with the Swedish Prosecution Service. A seminar was held in autumn 2015 for police employees who have been appointed to work on these issues. In October 2016 a major conference was held, in which the Swedish Police Authority, the Swedish Prosecution Service, the Swedish Security Service and the Chancellor of Justice were involved, to discuss questions about hate crime in general and the crime of agitation against a national or ethnic group in particular. 10. The police service’s far-reaching authority to intervene in the lives of individuals requires effective and constant supervision of the agencies’ operations. The Committee recommends that Sweden develop a clear strategy to ensure scrutiny of the way police and prosecutors deal with hate crimes. The Parliamentary Ombudsmen check that the agencies are working in line with the laws and rules that govern their work — particularly those laws that concern individuals’ rights and obligations in relation to the State. 11. In line with its mandate under its appropriation directions for 2016, the Swedish Police Authority must also set out the measures that have been taken as a result of the mandate to develop initiatives to combat hate crime. The reporting requirement includes setting out the effects the measures are judged to have led to or to lead to. Furthermore, the report is to contain a description of how the Authority intends to continue developing initiatives to combat hate crime. The report is to be submitted by 1 March 2017 the latest. 12. The limited opportunities to monitor crime throughout the entire chain of the legal system apply to all types of crime, not to hate crime specifically. Although a consistent definition of hate crime improves opportunities to monitor the crimes reported throughout the entire chain, this does not go far enough. In addition, extensive technical modifications are needed, which are taking place within ongoing work on developing information processing in the legal system. This work includes making it easier to follow cases throughout the legal system and the intention is for this to also apply to hate crime. 13. In 2014 the then National Police Board (now the Police Authority), the Swedish Prosecution Service and the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention were commissioned to work towards the consistent practical application of the term hate crime on the basis of a given definition, within and between the agencies. In the National plan to combat racism, similar forms of hostility and hate crime (see below), the Government highlights the importance of continuing the agencies’ work on the practical application of the definition. 3 CERD/C/SWE/22-23 14. Regarding the Swedish Prosecution Service and the Chancellor of Justice, reference is made to paragraphs 25-28 of the previous report and paragraph 12 of the follow-up report. 15. Technological development has brought about positive changes for freedom of expression and democratic debate. However, this progress has also led to threats and other forms of personal abuse taking on a new guise. 16. On 1 October 2015, the Swedish Police Authority set up a national IT crime centre with the aim of strengthening its capacity regarding IT-related crime, including internet- related hate crime and other criminal threats and abuse online. It is also important to include private actors in the battle against hate crime on the internet. Sweden welcomes the Code of Conduct presented by American companies in Brussels on 31 May. The Code of Conduct demonstrates a clear undertaking on the part of private actors to take action against online hate propaganda. 17. Every year, the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention carries out a survey of exposure to crime, fear of crime and confidence in the justice system. The results are reported including the parameter Swedish/foreign background (born in Sweden with both parents/one parent born in Sweden, born in Sweden with both parents born outside Sweden and born outside Sweden). 18. The statistics on hate crime are published in an annual report by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention. They mainly comprise police reports with an identified hate crime motive. From 2007 onwards, self-reported vulnerability to xenophobic and homophobic hate crime based on the Swedish Crime Survey (Nationella trygghetsundersökningen, NTU) has also been included in the statistics, and self-reported vulnerability to anti-religious hate crime has been included since 2011.